When I was a boy I dreamt of you daily,

When I was 20 I thought I knew you,

As I fall toward 40 I’m not sure we’ve ever met,

But I’ve loved you, you know, since childhood;

Since I saw what it meant to hold someone’s hand

And understood what that touch could bring.

I’ve spoken to you, daily, not sure if you ever heard,

But I’ve told you, over and over,

The plans I’ve made for us in my head,

All alone, though sometimes I spoke to you silently

As I lay in the wrong arms, in the wrong bed,

Having fallen upon a path that wasn’t mine.

I’ve married you, again and again,

In fairy tales and formal attire,

In far off castles and on sun kissed shores.

I’ve made love to you, moved in with you,

Moved the world for you and yet,

Although we’ve never met, you’ve changed a lot

Over time, with each day, along each year,

Through the ages that I’ve dreamt you in.

You are no more the God I once dreamt you to be

With chiseled jaw and perfect pose.

No, you are now to me, at last,

more man than myth; more meaningful than mystical,

More substance than surface.

I too am now man, having grown older and wiser

And learned to distinguish all that is necessary

From all that is but noise.

When I was a boy I dreamt of you daily,

One bounteous bodily being of beauty,

But now, all is different, I have seen the world

Beyond dreams, and have felt life pulsing through my waking hands.

Now, with eyes open, I see part of you in many and none of you in some

but I’m thinking that I’ll never find all of you in one.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly